From the Alvin and Rosalie Sara Check studio PBS Kansas Presents Kansas Week.

$1 billion question for Kansas taxpayers.

What is President Trump's immigration crackdown really costing us?

And is it worth it?

Plus, health insurance costs are climbing again.

Families paying thousands more.

So what can Congress do to bring those bills down?

And from grocery prices to the cost of buying a home?

Kansans are feeling the squeeze.

What can Washington do to make life more affordable?

Three candidates for Congress.

Three big issues and answers voters need before they head to the polls.

That's what we're talking about right now on Kansas Week.

Hello and welcome to Kansas Week, a special edition of Kansas Week featuring the three candidates who are running for Kansas fourth district congressional seat.

Our first topic is affordability.

Kansas families are feeling the squeeze at the grocery store, at the gas pump.

And even when it comes to buying a home, President Trump's tariffs have added some pressure on farmers, who are also facing soaring diesel and fertilizer costs.

While retaliatory trade measures threaten overseas markets for Kansas crops.

Higher fuel costs also mean more expensive transportation and higher grocery bills.

Meanwhile, paychecks remain a challenge.

Kansas ranked 41st in the nation in average weekly wages in the first quarter of this year.

And housing is another hurdle.

A Kansas household needs now about $89,000 a year to afford a median priced home.

That's according to a survey from habitat for humanity.

So what can Washington do from trade policy and taxes to energy costs, workforce investments and housing supply?

What federal solutions would help Kansans keep more of what they earn?

Here to discuss this and some of the other issues for voters to consider in the upcoming election.

Are the three candidates running for Kansas fourth district congressional seat?

We have the two challengers, Democrat Katie Tyndall, Libertarian Drew Cranmer, and the incumbent Republican Congressman Ron Estes.

Thank you all for joining us today.

What can I'll start with the incumbent Congressman.

Thank you, Congressman Estes, for coming in.

What can Kansans do to keep more of their paychecks?

Yeah, I think the big thing around affordability, as you talk about it, is, you know, during the four years of the Biden administration, inflation went up over 20%.

That means the cost of everything has gone up, whether it's groceries or whether it's lumber, whether it's it's labor cost, whether it's, you know, fuel prices as well.

And so, you know, the key thing to think about that the best way to make things affordable is keep more of what you earn.

And so that's what we've really focused on with the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act and also with the, with the working family tax cuts.

The big beautiful bill last year is making sure that those provisions were permanent going forward.

So people had that that money in their pocket to be able to to afford the things that are out there.

You know, it's unfortunate now with Iran closing the Strait of Hormuz.

And actually what they've done is now drive up prices like diesel, $2 a gallon above what it was.

The thing to think, keep in mind, is that the biggest constraint isn't that we don't have enough oil in the United States.

The biggest constraint is we don't have good refinery capacity.

We haven't built a new refinery in the United States since 1978.

And in addition, during that time frame, there's been several closed.

So that's why we're seeing a big increase in in diesel, just because we can't get the diesel made and out to, to be able to help.

And obviously that has impact.

Just from looking at, over the road truckers in terms of hauling goods and services to, to consumers.

Okay.

Katie Tindall, I'll give you a chance to respond to the congressman's comments.

Go ahead.

Yes.

Thank you.

Well, first of all, thank you for having us today.

It is an honor to be here.

And I'm glad that we're starting with affordability because my platform, I call it Katie's ABCs, and it is a is for affordability.

Right.

That is one of the primary concerns that I hear when I'm on the campaign trail.

And I think what is so unfortunate about the situation that we find ourselves in right now is that it was self-inflicted wounds, right?

We heard a lot before the 2024 election about how if Republicans won, they were going to come in and fix the Biden economy on day one, right.

So my question for income investors is, has that happened?

Because from my vantage point, what this war in Iran has done is jacked up fuel prices like he's talked about.

Right.

Diesel goes through the roof.

It is hammering our farmers right now.

And the hundreds of tariff policies of this administration have closed off our market.

They have jacked up prices at the grocery store.

Right.

And they are making the cost of living harder for everyone.

So I guess my question is, how long do Republicans want to solve this problem?

Because inflation was on its way down when the 2024 election happened.

Right.

That's the how it was trending.

And we arguably had the strongest economy in the world.

And that is no longer the case.

Before I let him respond, let me let me give you the floor first.

Libertarian candidate Drew Cranmer, thanks for coming.

Go ahead.

Thank you for having me.

So I'm in agreement with Katie on some things, and I'm in agreement with Ron on some things.

Honestly, I think Katie's right about the war in Iran.

And the tariffs, I think has resulted in a lot of retaliatory tariffs as well that make it hard for farmers to sell on the market.

But I would like to attack the problem at its root.

And I consider the Federal Reserve the root.

You know, basically Congress spends money it doesn't have.

The fed prints the difference and consumers pay for it at the grocery store.

So I think we need to audit the Federal Reserve.

And I think we need to be open and honest about fed policy and the amount of money that they're creating.

So, Congressman, both candidates have complained, for lack of a better word, about President Trump's tariffs.

Do you support President Trump's tariffs and why?

So I think one of the things we have to remember is that after World War Two, I mean, the United States was the dominant manufacturing company left in the world because of that.

And so for decades, we saw trade agreements that typically the United States gave away provisions to different countries, and which made sense at that time, when we were half the world's GDP, it made a whole lot of sense.

But since the 1990s or so, we've seen the rest of the world grow.

We've seen, as those trade agreements turned into other countries growing, and the United States declining and jobs leaving the United States.

So tariffs has been the hammer, if you will, to actually bring people to the table and say, let's let's negotiate now for the 21st century and what we need for trade agreements going forward.

And at the end of the day, we'll get to the point where where trade agreements are in place, they'll probably be a 10 or 15% tariff.

That's kind of seems a lot with a number that's been talking about in most of the the agreements that have been signed already.

And, you know, but things like, aviation, we've continue to be an advocate for the reciprocal zero zero tariff agreement.

And that's been included in so many of the discussions.

And one of the pieces that, about affordability, tied to, tariffs, but also tied to just normal on the, on, everyday activities.

And we had ten straight months of wages were overcoming inflation, before the conflict with Iran started.

So that was, an aspect that actually was beneficial for people before, before Iran closed the straits.

Okay.

We'll move on to the next topic.

Another growing expense is health care.

Of course, even with insurance through work.

Millions of Americans are paying more and still getting hit with bigger bills when they need to go to the hospital or the doctor.

According to the nonpartisan Kaiser Family Foundation, the total cost of health insurance for a family of four through an employer now averages more than $28,000 a year.

Employers pay most of that bill, but workers themselves now contribute an average of nearly $7,500 a year.

That's up more than $620 from last year.

And that's just the premium we're talking about.

The average deductible for individual coverage has more than doubled since 2011.

Small businesses face particular pressure, forcing employers to choose between absorbing higher costs and passing more of the burden on to workers.

So what can Washington do?

How can lawmakers make that coverage more affordable without leaving Americans with less access to care?

Mr.

Tyndall, I'll start with you.

Yeah.

Thank you for the question.

So as a small business owner, I know full well, you know what it means for these insurance prices to keep rising.

Right?

And it is it is becoming really hard for small businesses in particular, to to cover their health insurance for their employers and offer that as a benefit.

So that's one.

But two, I think that until we root out money in our political system, we are not going to solve the problem of rising health care costs.

And you want to know why?

Because our lawmakers are bought and sold by health insurance companies and pharmaceutical companies.

And so that is why another piece of my platform, Katie's ABC, she is for crushing corruption.

We have to root out some of that money in politics if we want to drive down health care costs and have lawmakers making decisions that are in the best interests of average Kansans, now, I particularly am concerned about our rural health care right now.

Right.

Our rural hospitals.

And, what I would like to see happen on day one is, like so many of the issues we're tackling right now is to undo the bad things that have been done in the last 18 months by this Congress and this administration.

So what does that look like?

It means, reversing the Medicaid cuts that were included in the one big, beautiful bill, you know, restoring the ACA subsidies that were included in that bill, because those two provisions alone have kicked 8 million Americans off of health insurance in recent months.

That is unsustainable.

And I don't know how we're going to make up the costs of that care and keep our rural hospital doors open if we don't do something.

Drew go ahead.

Affordability in health care.

How how do we fix this problem?

So Katie's right.

The rural hospitals are a major concern.

My approach is a little different.

I think we need to expand HSAs and direct primary care.

I understand that doesn't work for everyone, but I'm on a direct primary care, you know, high deductible health plan, and, I it works well for me.

So I think we need to expand HSAs.

We also need to look at, expanding the right to sell insurance across state lines.

You know, health care is the only industry where you basically don't know the total until services have been delivered in your Senate bill.

So I think we need to push for price transparency in health care as well.

And, you know, when you're not the one paying the bill and it's third party, you know, payments, the prices tend to rise.

So I think we need to press for transparency as well.

Congressman Estes.

Health care affordability, health care has really become, unaffordable to have.

And, you know, if you go back to when Obamacare was first passed, you remember the promises Obamacare was it was going to cut the premiums by 25 for $2,500 a month, or $2,500 a year for the average family.

What we've seen instead is premiums have doubled or tripled.

We've seen deductibles doubled or more in terms of that.

And we've seen rural hospitals suffer because of, lack of utilization, lack of reimbursement.

And what we took is how do we address this?

So health care is a big entity in terms of whether it's insurance, whether it's providers, whether it's the pharmaceutical companies.

One of the things that President Trump and probably conservatives, we took on the drug companies, we made sure that we wanted to lower the price of prescription drugs.

And we've done that.

We've got a 4% increase or a 4% reduction that's put in place already, and we need to do more.

And the important part about it is how do we make sure those medicines that people need is important and that's available for you to be, to be able to utilize, be able to afford through that.

We also included in the working family tax cuts, the big beautiful bill, 5 or $50 billion for rural health hospitals and $222 billion of that $2,022 million of that is coming to Kansas to help our rural hospitals make sure that they keep, their doors open and support our local communities.

Okay.

Before before I go back to her.

Miss Tyndall did make an accusation.

She said our lawmakers are bought and paid for.

Are you bought and paid for?

Well, it's a good accusation.

Was.

No.

Absolutely not.

Not bought and paid for.

Made an accusation that the insurance companies were buying the politicians today.

You know, the Democrats wanted to reinstate the Covid era, subsidies on top of the basic Obamacare subsidies that would have put $350 billion back into the pockets of the insurance companies because it would have its payments straight to them.

And that's why we stopped it.

They shut the government down in order to try to get that money back in the insurance companies pockets.

Mr.

del, I'll give you a chance to respond with about 30s.

Thank you.

I just wanted to respond on the Rural Health Transformation Fund because that sounds really good, right?

$50 billion to a rural health transformation fund.

But what we're leaving out here is the fact that the Medicaid cuts that are going to take effect are $137 billion in cuts over the next ten years.

That $51 billion expires in five years.

Not only that, I have met with hospital administration across the district, most recently in Kingman and in Pratt.

These people are exhausted because the that their lawmakers are not solving the problem, they're creating new administrative headaches.

Now they have to apply for these grant funds, spend it on particular things, infrastructure, technological advances and not payment for services, which is where the gap is, which is the risk of our you know, that's what's putting our rural hospitals at risk of closing right now.

Is that gap through anything else with about 15 20s, can you respond?

No.

Again, I find myself kind of somewhere in the middle between them.

Understood?

Understood the things on the on the Medicaid recipients.

One of the things that, that we prohibited, I mean, there were over 2 million people that were double dipping on Medicaid in two different states.

That's no longer happening as part of that.

There were there were over roughly 2 million people that were the incomes were too high to qualify for Medicaid.

But the states weren't weren't, checking their income.

Those are the types of people that were were, we put in place now that they the rules won't allow them to get Medicaid so that Medicaid can be available for the folks that due to the need it and deserve it.

Understood.

For five decades, public broadcasting relied on a partnership private donations matched by federal funding.

That partnership ended last year when Congress eliminated federal funding for public broadcasting.

Now, PBS stations across the country are struggling to make up the difference.

Financial deadlines are closing in.

By late November, PBS Kansas must pay the national network $374,000 to keep PBS programing on the air.

Public television stations across Kansas are facing similar financial pressures.

If public stations are unable to raise enough money from local sources to fund their operations.

What do you think should happen?

Drew, I'll start with you.

I'm afraid you're probably not going to like my answer here.

As a libertarian, I generally, you know, prefer the government do as little as possible.

And this is one area where I think Ron and I can probably agree.

I don't know that the government should be funding public television regardless of who's in office.

So I'm afraid that's the answer you're going to have to live with for me.

All right, Katie, I'll move on to you.

Public broadcasting funding cuts.

Congress cut all of our fun.

If for PBS Kansas, it was about.

It was over $1 million in funding, and it has hit us hard.

So tell us your thoughts.

I would say if I was in Congress, I would not have voted to make those cuts.

And what really upsets me about this is that, Representative Estus voted for a continuing resolution last March that had that funding for PBS, and I work for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting in it.

90 days later, after President Trump had withheld that funding and urged Congress to rescind that funding, only then did Congress follow those marching orders and passed the Rescissions act 90 days later.

So my question is, if you were for the funding in March and then against the funding in June, that is not okay, right?

We need lawmakers that, you know, are rooted in principles.

Either you believe in funding for public broadcasting or you don't.

And that is one thing that concerns me so much about this vote, because it really seems like it was just Congress doing the president's bidding after he told them to.

Now, when it comes to, public broadcasting, it is so fundamental.

I mean, the educational programs that you all provide to our young people, that impartial news, freedom of the press is, you know, a stalwart of our democracy.

And so I will stand up for it at every turn.

And I think now more than ever, we need that impartial, media coverage around current events so that our population can make educated decisions when it comes to their votes.

Okay, Congressman Estes, you vote.

You voted to cut public funding.

Tell us why and would you ever support it again?

You know, so let's let's talk through what that is.

Right now we have a $40 trillion debt.

And we're spending this year $2 trillion more than what's coming in.

So roughly, the federal government spends roughly $7 trillion, collects $5 trillion in taxes.

If you look back at a trend line, we've actually been increasing the amount of tax revenue we've been receiving, it's gone up, 70%, or it's going to 40%.

Spending has gone up 70%.

And so you need to look at programs that have been in place for years and see if it still makes sense.

And particularly when we look at public private partnerships and arrangements around that.

For example, C-Span, which broadcasts all of the congressional hearings and the floor time, that's a nonprofit that is not funded with taxpayer dollars.

Those are the types of programs I think we ought we should look at and see if that makes the most sense going forward, instead of expecting taxpayers who may or may not watch any of the programs, that they should be expected to help fund a bigger government to, to authorize those.

So I'm always a big advocate that that we should make those decisions at the local level.

It makes less decision to say, let's raise federal taxes on folks in Wichita.

I'll take that money to Washington, DC and then have the bureaucracy massaged it a little bit, take some fees out of it, and then send a little bit of it back to Wichita to fund programs.

So we should look at a lot of programs like that.

Any response over here from either?

Go ahead.

Drew.

I was going to say I'm a big fan of the Constitution and the 10th Amendment, and I don't think it says anything about public funding for broadcasting in the Constitution.

I agree that those decisions are best made at the local level.

And yeah, we should let local private industry or underwriting support public broadcasting.

Miss Tyndall, about 30s again.

Yeah, I would just say all you need to do is look at how, divided our society is right now and how cable news networks profit off of that division, to know that it is in the best interests of our democracy to have, a publicly funded, impartial, news station, distributing our news.

The other thing that I would just add on the tail end is, I know, representative us mentioned, the large deficit or the large debt that we have, and he's been in Congress for nine years now.

And since then, the debt has moved from $25 trillion to $40 trillion.

And so I think it's time to give somebody else a chance at balancing the budget.

Okay.

President Trump's immigration crackdown is also reshaping communities across the country, including right here in Kansas.

Data compiled from immigration and Customs Enforcement records shows at least 3895 Ice immigration arrests right here in Kansas from 2025 through August of this year.

Nationally, the administration has spent billions expanding detention and deportation operations and economic policy Institute analysis estimates Kansas taxpayers will shoulder about $1.8 billion in federal deportation costs over Trump's second term.

That's about $1,800 per taxpayer.

Supporters say stricter enforcement is necessary to address illegal immigration.

Critics question the cost and note that many people arrested have no criminal convictions.

So how should Congress balance border security, interior enforcement, taxpayer costs, and the economic impact on communities?

Congressman, I'll give you the first chance here.

Well, first, let's start with the root cause of the problem.

I mean, if we go back two years from now and look at what the open border and the policy we had, I mean, during the Biden administration, they had as many as 250,000 people a month crossing the border illegally and being sent throughout the country.

I mean, and there was a cost to that.

There was a cost to fly them around the country.

There's a cost for the Customs and Border Patrol to to take care of them.

There was a cost for, I mean, New York City was paying, what, $12 billion for housing for the illegal immigrants that were there.

Talk of hospitals being closed because of that.

School systems having to be burdened with that as well.

And so one estimate I've seen that kind of counters that, that this, this left wing think tank that actually came up with the $1,800, they just basically spread money across in terms of saying what we're doing to protect the borders.

And what they didn't include was the other side of the equation is, what if you left open borders?

I mean, one estimate was that it would be cost about $150 billion a year to actually, have open borders, care for all of those those costs, the housing and health care and other things through that.

So we as a as a policy in general, when we were a nation of immigrants and we're going to continue to stay that way, we want to make sure that our laws help more legal immigrants get into the country, make it easier.

We're going to continue to have more people than any other country in the world come in legally.

We want to make that easier.

We also want to make sure that, you know, the criminal element actually came in, when the Biden administration had the borders open.

We need to make sure that gets, sent back out.

Our streets are safer now, where drug drug overdoses are down and deaths are down.

So so that's a good, good policy in terms of helping helping our communities, helping, the country be better off.

We just need to make sure that as we look forward, that our policy works and supports our country.

Mr.. Del, go ahead.

Immigration.

Immigration.

So I think that we need strong borders, right?

We need enforcement.

But I think that we can have, enforcement of our laws and do so in a humane way.

And right now, what I see from this administration, is, you know, going into communities, terrorizing communities, violating constitutional rights, that needs to go.

And regardless of whether or not you you approve of or abhor this administration's immigration enforcement policies, our immigration system is broken.

And that problem lies squarely at the feet of Congress.

It has been for decades now that they have kicked immigration reform down the road.

It is time for them to tackle this issue.

Now, I know there was a bipartisan piece of legislation a couple of years ago that was worked out by Senator Lankford, and I think of a Senator, Chris Murphy.

That's where I would start.

I think we need to go back to that bipartisan bill, see what needs to be changed and move that forward.

But that, to me, is the problem with this is everybody wants to run on the topic of immigration instead of actually fixing the problems.

It's time for Congress to stand up and do its job.

Drew, President Trump and the Republicans were saying at the beginning that they were only going after, dangerous criminals.

And now all the opponents seem to say that's not actually what's happening.

Right.

Well, and we've seen that in our own state when they swooped in, to western and central Kansas and, you know, Dodge City, Garden City and Liberal and didn't even tell, you know, local law enforcement that they were coming in.

So I think the enforcement has been kind of abhorrent.

And I agree that we can have both secure borders and constitutionality and respect people's, you know, constitutional rights.

I agree that the system needs reformed.

We need to make it easier for people, especially our farm workers and laborers, to legally immigrate.

And yeah, we need to have a little bit of compassion and definitely a lot of oversight and transparency when it comes to enforcing the immigration laws.

But before I let the congressman respond from either of you, any specific plans that you would have that you could bring to Congress to, to solve this problem?

Go ahead.

Mr.. Well, I think that, again, I think any any immigration reform bill needs to have strong enforcement, right.

We need to have pathways, viable pathways to citizenship.

We need to make sure that our immigration courts are fully staffed and so that we're processing applications in a timely manner.

But like Ron said, I think that any immigration reform bill, first and foremost, needs to remember the words that are inscribed at the base of the Statue of Liberty.

Right.

Give us your your tired, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free.

Diversity is our strength.

And I think we need to emphasize that.

And, I mean, any immigration reform bill is about one minute to go, Congressman.

Go ahead.

So I think I mean, as I mentioned, we are a nation of immigrants and we want to continue to do that.

We had a very good immigration bill that focus on before the border was blown up by by President Biden.

And the focus we had there at that point in time, was look at the so-called DACA children would give them legal status as long as they didn't break the law, they could apply for citizenship, but they'd have to joint get two in the line and go through the process like everybody else who started in their home country and wanted to go go legally.

It would it would also address the extended chain migration addressed so many other issues as part of that.

Unfortunately, what we see too often in Washington is that people see an issue.

They grab it for political value, and they don't want to solve the problem because it helps them to talk about the problem instead of saying, here's a solution.

And and now that some of the border now that the border secure, you know, we've had 16 months where no illegal immigrants have been released into the country.

So we can now get back and refocus on making our immigration laws better.

All right.

That's a wrap for this week.

Thank you so much to the congressional candidates, Katie Tyndall, Drew Cranmer and Congressman Ron Estus.

And thanks to you for watching as well.

I'm Jared Cirillo.

Have a great weekend.